Gamestudio Links
Zorro Links
Newest Posts
Newbie Questions
by fairtrader. 12/05/23 14:22
Zorro Trader GPT
by TipmyPip. 12/04/23 11:34
Square root rule
by Smallz. 12/02/23 09:15
RTest not found error
by TipmyPip. 12/01/23 21:43
neural function for Python to [Train]
by TipmyPip. 12/01/23 14:47
Xor Memory Problem.
by TipmyPip. 11/28/23 14:23
Training with command line parameters
by TipmyPip. 11/26/23 08:42
Combine USD & BTC Pairs In Asset Loop
by TipmyPip. 11/26/23 08:30
AUM Magazine
Latest Screens
A psychological thriller game
SHADOW (2014)
DEAD TASTE
Tactics of World War I
Who's Online Now
1 registered members (AndrewAMD), 599 guests, and 3 spiders.
Key: Admin, Global Mod, Mod
Newest Members
fairtrader, hus, Vurtis, Harry5, KelvinC
19019 Registered Users
Previous Thread
Next Thread
Print Thread
Rate Thread
Page 3 of 6 1 2 3 4 5 6
Re: How to tell your story [Re: Paul_L_Ming] #135417
06/19/07 01:49
06/19/07 01:49
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 3,538
WA, Australia
J
JibbSmart Offline
Expert
JibbSmart  Offline
Expert
J

Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 3,538
WA, Australia
Quote:

-- Nothing screams "I'm a boob" more than writing "The world was dead. Totally destroyed. Like, not even some low-down bii-atch with madd skillz could live".


noob? i can't be sure -- where i live no one calls anyone a "boob" but it could be different where you are

i generally agree, but particularly with this:
Quote:

A story should have an effect in how the player plays the game.


i hate seeing an important plot-twist or something that gets me excited only to have NO effect on the gameplay whatsoever.

julz


Formerly known as JulzMighty.
I made KarBOOM!
Re: How to tell your story [Re: JibbSmart] #135418
06/19/07 13:11
06/19/07 13:11
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,659
San Francisco
JetpackMonkey Offline
Serious User
JetpackMonkey  Offline
Serious User

Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,659
San Francisco
To create NPC's for Psychonauts, Tim Schafer downloaded a Friendster web page and made one for each, as if the NPC themselves had written it.. to present not only information about each one, but to demonstrate how they see themselves.

Re: How to tell your story [Re: JetpackMonkey] #135419
06/21/07 14:25
06/21/07 14:25
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Pappenheimer Offline
Senior Expert
Pappenheimer  Offline
Senior Expert

Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Very few additions from my site:

- It is said that a writer of a screenplay needs a year to write a screenplay for a movie. This means to write a good story to your game needs a lot of extra time.

- I think, you have to follow Aristotle's rule: a story needs a beginning, a middle and an end. And, as a gamemaker, you have to know what sort of gameplay celebrates these three.
Before you have this three parts of a story you don't _need_ anything else. Although, it makes sense, to write down the ideas you got for a game as they are coming, without a certain ranking, to get an overall feeling for the world in which the story-game takes place.

- While developing a story-game you have to care for several different things:
you are collecting ideas, you have to have a knowledge of your audience and an imagination about what it likes and feels and thinks, you have to have an opinion about the worlds in games and an opinion about the world beside games, and you have to have an idea, which of your opinions you can share with your audience and which opinions your game supplies _even_ if you don't intend to give any opinion and message within your story...
you have to think of the motivation of the gamer and of the motive/motivation of the player character. (Even if it is a hack'n'slay, the motive of the player character makes a huge difference: compare Manhunt(read the wikipedia article) and Doom or HL or Shadow Of The Colosses(wikipedia gives an outline of the story), for instance.
- Developing is collecting of more or less ramdom ideas, and analysing them regarding their use and purposes within game and story. It is mainly this switching between imagation/collecting and sorting/controlling.
Write your ideas down! This is the only way to switch from imagination to controlling and get step by step to additionally needed ideas.
Use friends for controlling, tell them the story, and listen to them to get what they understood: which information was missed, which information was misleading, or even didn't fit with the story at all, what did they like, what did they mislike...? Control yourself, can you remember and narrate the story without missing
- The main story should be simple, 3 parts(beginning, middle, end), this minimum should be the maximum as well. You will still need a _lot_ ideas to make this short story comprehendable and believable!

Re: How to tell your story [Re: Pappenheimer] #135420
06/21/07 14:53
06/21/07 14:53
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,659
San Francisco
JetpackMonkey Offline
Serious User
JetpackMonkey  Offline
Serious User

Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,659
San Francisco
Draw stuff from your own life, too, it doesn't have to be random.. this gives personal meaning to your work and other people can probably relate to the same things you can, if they are important to you. Er, they ego invest.


Re: How to tell your story [Re: JetpackMonkey] #135421
06/21/07 15:01
06/21/07 15:01
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Pappenheimer Offline
Senior Expert
Pappenheimer  Offline
Senior Expert

Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
You are right, but in that case, its difficult to analyse its meaning in its general aspects because you are involved in it. You need a distance to it, at least from time to time.

My recommendation to beginners in story-things:

Take a gamestory that you like or dislike, and parodize it, mix in things from your everyday world, and screw everything up, turn and shift elements and see how the meanings are a-changing.

Last edited by Pappenheimer; 06/21/07 19:49.
Re: How to tell your story [Re: Pappenheimer] #135422
06/21/07 15:08
06/21/07 15:08
Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,659
San Francisco
JetpackMonkey Offline
Serious User
JetpackMonkey  Offline
Serious User

Joined: Nov 2003
Posts: 1,659
San Francisco
If I can talk about the story in my game:

Sleepy Sushi Service is about a sushi delivery girl on a really crazy night.. the story is drawn from my weird personal experiences delivering pizzas one summer. The main character's story arc is similar to one of my friends, who gave up training as an olympic swimmer after her father died.

There's a lot of other characters and places and scenarios which are events from my life, reflected and distorted in a funhouse mirror. This doesn't just add depth to the story, but also the personal meaning makes me invest more love and attention to developing the game. When it is personal expression, it becomes more like art, and I think that is important.

It is fit around the proper storyline model, and the game is not entirely based on my personal experience, but many of the scenarios and characters are things and people I know to be meaningful.. not taken directly but used as the model.. I think this is something a lot of authors do-- you have to involve your own experience-- the saying that you can't write about things you don't know..

Even if its a story about trolls and aliens and gangsters, you can fit things from your own life into it, since we all have common personal issues and experiences. If you can't understand on a personal level why the alien wants to invade earth, what makes the gangster tick, why an enemy hates you.. then I think the story could be improved with personal experience that humans have in common

Re: How to tell your story [Re: JetpackMonkey] #135423
06/21/07 15:21
06/21/07 15:21
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Pappenheimer Offline
Senior Expert
Pappenheimer  Offline
Senior Expert

Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Okey, that's all very true.
But, you can relate on _many_ experiences, its much more difficult when you have only very few experiences.

My recommendation was especially for young people who start writing with a short lifespan which makes it difficult to have an idea of ones own motives and its place within general life.

Re: How to tell your story [Re: JibbSmart] #135424
06/21/07 22:07
06/21/07 22:07
Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,208
Germany
Error014 Offline OP
Expert
Error014  Offline OP
Expert

Joined: Jul 2002
Posts: 3,208
Germany
Quote:

that myspace idea is really interesting i think that's a really good comparison! it sets a good standard. more of a bare-minimum -- a good character-driven story should be somewhere between that and the huge questionnaire you posted




Hah, you're right, the questionnaire is a little overkill, but it's still not a bad idea to go through it, at least for your main characters. Many of these questions can be answered by a quick yes or no, and after you've gone through the first half or so, you already have a much better understanding of your character. It's quite a cool thing, actually

Quote:

the player should be in a position where they're enticed to put the majority of their effort into finding out about the story, not trying to survive the next samey ordeal.




This is a wonderful approach, but what if the player doesn't really care for your story? Then you lost and your whole game is somewhat ignored. So its only natural that you get pushed a little

Linearity is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I think it is a good thing for new players. They'd probably get lost in something like "Gothic" real quick: "Where do I have to go now?", they ask. "What should I do?", they wonder. I don't know whats with me lately, but I also prefer linearity somewhat. I hate it if I can freely choose all classes, only to find out that the game either chooses to randomly steal one of my characters, which completely throws off all the tactics of mine - or because I'm just a stupid little guy who isn't such a tacticsmaster. "Sorry", the game says, "either you are a super genius or you just have to level up fifty million more levels! HAHAHAHAHA!".
This can't happen with linarity. Sure, it kills replay value. But at least I get the game done once.

Quote:

don't get me started on learning curves in adventure games though... not that i have a problem with them, but in a non-action game it gets particularly hard to have a changing learning curve. often in adventure games, "puzzles" can take ages for one person and be trivial for another, and then be the other way round later on.




This is a flaw of the whole concept of adventuregames, really. It's not so easy to solve, as it really depends on the person. In shooters you can just make the reactiontime shorter and increase the damage done, but in adventures?
However, adventures have moved away from strictly logical puzzles somewhat. When they end up in abstruse solutions that nobody would ever think of, then you lost. I'm not saying that everything has to be something that everyone does all the time (although that can work), but it should at least be something that people can think of. This will help with this problem, I guess.

Quote:

if the DAU doesnt get it, you lost...




I don't think you can generalize it like that. Of course, everyone should be able to get the main storyline, but some finer nuances might only be visible to those that choose to think more deeply about the story. I love it when movies don't explain everything, but just enough so you can figure out most of the rest on your own. It's some kind of reward for further thinking about the storyline. Again, that depends on the game, but for storyheavy games, I'm all for it. Just a few little snippets, huh?

Quote:

If the story mentiones how powerful and rare magic items are...you had better make them rare and powerful. They shouldn't be popping up like candies from a PEZ dispenser the moment the player starts the game.




True. Many times, game developers use the story as some kind of factor to increase the success of the player. "Oh, you found the first stone? Why, it's the most powerful thing on earth!". Yeah, that motivates me, but it gets kind of silly when I find out that it deals only two more damage than my regular sword.

Quote:

A story should never be written with any 'modern day' slang or coloquisms...unless it is in the form of actual character dialog.




I don't really have to say anything to this other than that I strongly agree. I just put it here for emphasis. The internet would say "QFT". Oh, crazy, little internet.

Quote:

I'm sure I can think of more things to add,




Well, I hope you will! The points you mentioned are important and you've formulated them well


Quote:

Use friends for controlling, tell them the story, and listen to them to get what they understood: which information was missed, which information was misleading, or even didn't fit with the story at all,




Good point. Let them ask any questions they might have, about the characters, the world they live in, the concept, ... - it really forces you to think everything through. You just can't have a "mysterious power", when you don't know what it is. Also, many sideaspects that were just added as a weak argument for why something happened will be questioned and while you probably have to rewrite something, it's for the better.

Quote:

The main story should be simple, 3 parts(beginning, middle, end),




So how do you define simple? If you make it too straightforward, you make it boring. If you add twists, you can't have fifteen twists with the same characters, or the many "coincidences" will make the whole things unbelievable.

Sometimes, its also a good thing to NOT resolve some things in the end. You can't make everyone happy. If the player feels sad about that, then that might be a good thing, as it makes the thing more meaningful. How realistic is it that I can help all hundred people in the (small) gamingworld? Sometimes, one just can't do anything. It makes it more believable and makes it seem more real. It might not be easy, but if you really show how these characters go on with their problems, it will just feel more alive. It won't be a happy game in that moment, of course. Don't you feel kind of sad if a character you really liked has to overcome these struggles in your favorite TV-show? Now, what if these problems wouldn't exist in the first place, because the maincharacter would be able to solve all these problems right there? That would be boring. You can't have drama with that.

--


I recently thought of a new approach that I call "the-obsessed-fan-approach". You know when you read an article about wikipedia and there area ll kind of weird, trivial things listed? Like how many times SpongeBob was "Employee of the month" or something. When I read that, I thought: "What kind of article would they write about my game?" (A stub, probably, that would be deleted shortly after, sigh). It was a nice little thoughtexercise, and pretty motivating. "Would anyone thought of this relation between Character X and Y?", I thought, "or would they put in trivia that thing X changes five times during the game?". Most probably not, but it was neat to think about that.



Quote:


Quote:

Is there any interest in some kind of "character workshop"? Present your character and get feedback and ideas from other users?



i'm interested! i don't have anything for it at the moment, but i think it would be really interesting and a huge encouragement for as GS users to have more interesting games. graphics tend not to be the strong point for indie developers (not always though), so we could use all the help in the "down-to-earth" parts of gameplay and character development we can get




Great! I'm a little scared of opening another thraed, as I fear I'd kill it with one of my super-wordy posts . But I really like the idea, although I couldn't contribute without first giving a long introduction about the world and all. This of course is true for most games, but then, I think I stray a little more from the norm than most


Perhaps this post will get me points for originality at least.

Check out Dungeon Deities! It's amazing and will make you happy, successful and almost certainly more attractive! It might be true!
Re: How to tell your story [Re: Error014] #135425
06/22/07 10:55
06/22/07 10:55
Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Pappenheimer Offline
Senior Expert
Pappenheimer  Offline
Senior Expert

Joined: Sep 2003
Posts: 5,900
Bielefeld, Germany
Quote:


Quote:


The main story should be simple, 3 parts(beginning, middle, end),






So how do you define simple? If you make it too straightforward, you make it boring. If you add twists, you can't have fifteen twists with the same characters, or the many "coincidences" will make the whole things unbelievable.

Sometimes, its also a good thing to NOT resolve some things in the end.




To say what's 'simple' isn't easy!
Maybe, it helps to say: A simple story has only single elements: a single character, a single enemy, a single conflict, a single start, a single middle, a single twist, a single fight, a single satisfaction!

A simple story that I developed in a halfday animation project with pupils:
while they were kneaded plastilin in their hands and build little characters like a dog, a turtle, two smarties with arms and legs, a man with a hat etc. I talked with them about how we could make these characters interact with each other.
The result was this story:
They all walked in a park where they joined by chance, the dog jumped at the man with the hat, he felt on his back and the dog was over him and licked his face, and he cried for help, the smarties bewitched the dog which changed to a turtle, _but_ - and this was the single twist and end of the story - the behaviour was still that of the dog: the turtle continued sitting over the man and licked his face. (Movies with plastilin charcters don't need much realism, so this worked. )

The end of this story shows that an end doesn't need to be a solution - that's why I wrote 'satisfaction' in my row of single parts of a simple story.
The conflict of the story isn't solved, it is transformed in a different conflict, although it is not _very_ different in this example.

Spoken in terms of sociology: a conflict seldom can be solved, it has to be transformed into other conflicts, 'easier', 'weaker', more and smaller conflicts. (Try to think this way about the palastinian conflict, for instance...)

The core of the story consists of a conflict or - just to mention it - a unfullfilled desire.

My advice to make the story as simple as possible is because of this:
Only a finished story is a story, and only a finished game is a game. After finishing this, you can add other parts, twists or what you like, part by part.

Another good example of a simple story is the One Knights Stand.

To examplify what's the 'middle' of the story: look at Angela's World - there is no beginning and no end of the story! This said, we can conclude that a game needs at least the middle, maybe we can conclude as well, that the gameplay must be identical with the acting part of the middle... (Not sure, wether this makes sense though)

Re: How to tell your story [Re: Pappenheimer] #135426
06/22/07 11:26
06/22/07 11:26
Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 3,538
WA, Australia
J
JibbSmart Offline
Expert
JibbSmart  Offline
Expert
J

Joined: Mar 2006
Posts: 3,538
WA, Australia
i once considered making a game that's just one outdoor area 100x100 km (probably procedurally generated), you start on one side on foot with a gun and you have to find and kill the deer that begins anywhere on the other half, but moves around a lot. kill it and you get to look at the "making of game" doco.
Quote:

a single character, a single enemy, a single conflict, a single start, a single middle, a single twist, a single fight, a single satisfaction!



well i guess that's everything except the single twist!! um... i know! when u finally shoot the deer, two eagles swoop in simultaneously and take the deer away so you can't claim your prize.

julz


Formerly known as JulzMighty.
I made KarBOOM!
Page 3 of 6 1 2 3 4 5 6

Moderated by  checkbutton, mk_1 

Gamestudio download | chip programmers | Zorro platform | shop | Data Protection Policy

oP group Germany GmbH | Birkenstr. 25-27 | 63549 Ronneburg / Germany | info (at) opgroup.de

Powered by UBB.threads™ PHP Forum Software 7.7.1